


chances are

by skiesbelow



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - College/University, Canon-Typical Gang Behavior, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, REALLY FUCKING STUPID NARRATOR, Smoking, Unreliable Narrator, drive-in theatres, idk how to do tags ok its good just read it pls, it's not too focused on the 50s aspect its more like a normal fic with 50s qualities, slow burn but not rlly bc i cant do that, soft...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:41:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiesbelow/pseuds/skiesbelow
Summary: a 50's au that is based on a single photograph and my wild imagination. i have no excuse. please enjoy <3 its better than it sounds i promisetags will be updated as i go.title from chances are by johnny mathis :)
Relationships: Dee Reynolds/The Waitress (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia), Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 54
Kudos: 68





	1. i've got you (under my skin)

_May 2nd, 1959_

“Dude, I’ve told you a bajillion times, you gotta stop gettin’ covered in grease! One of these days you’re gonna catch on fire and I’m not gonna be there to put you out.”

“Calm down, Mac, and quit tellin’ me what I can and cannot do! Grease smells good, and tastes good, so what if I get a little drenched every once in a while?”

“ _So what?_ You’re going to burn to a goddamn crisp, Charlie! You work at a fucking mechanic! There’s welding happening as we speak!”

Charlie made a little dismissive gesture at that, a wave of the hand. Mac resumed reluctantly wiping car grease from his friend’s hair with an equally dirty rag, probably just making a bigger mess. He rolled his eyes and spat out the toothpick that he was chewing on – he’d started doing that recently, it made him look totally badass – because it was stinging uncomfortably on his tongue.

“This shit is not coming off, man,” Mac said, scrubbing relentlessly at the greased-black skin on Charlie’s neck until it was red and irritated.

“Alright, cool it,” Charlie replied, swatting Mac’s hand away. “there's no point in washin' it off when I'm just gonna get covered in it again,” he said with a shrug.

“You do know that you have an option, don’t you?” Mac said with a sigh. "Like, you don't _have_ to take a dip in grease every day, you choose to do that, you know that right?"

"Whatever, you don't know my life. You don’t know why I do the things I do." said Charlie.

He sure was right about that – Mac definitely didn’t know why Charlie did what he did, and he didn’t give a shit. 

“I don't give a shit.” he echoed his thoughts. “Let’s just get back to work, okay? Murphy’s car got a real number did on it last night and his dad’s payin’ us double to fix it up.”

“Right, like I’m gonna see a penny of that, we both know where that money’s really going.” Charlie said, flinging the grease rag over one shoulder and shaking his head.

He had a point. Mac’s dad’s business wasn’t exactly one of the most legitimate kind; their books were being cooked more thoroughly than a Thanksgiving turkey. Mac most certainly didn't want to upset his dad, though, so he did as he was ordered. Luther had just begun to slowly accept Mac into his inner circles, now that he was a legal man of twenty-one and even looked the part – he'd recently started slicking his hair back and wearing more leather jackets. He thought he looked mighty fine. Charlie, on the other hand, didn't agree. 

“You look like an asshole in that jacket, Mac.” said Charlie when they were walking back over to the shop from where they were posted in the communal bathroom.

“Pshht. No I don’t,” Mac argued, popping the collar of his shiny and new (stolen, but that was beside the point) black leather jacket. “I look cool.” he did a little spin, holding his hands up in the air and nearly toppling over some paint cans.

Charlie burst out laughing, a truly screechy thing. “That was _real_ cool, dude.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Mac said, turning red from equal parts embarrassment and anger. He jammed both hands into his jacket pockets and kept walking, more careful of his surroundings this time. He was about to pipe up again when he heard a familiar steely voice shouting something from behind him, sending a paralyzing chill down his spine.

“Ronnie!”

_Shit_ . Mac closed his eyes. His dad calling him by his name, his _birth name_ , was never a sign of anything good. He usually called him ‘son’ or even Mac, recently, if he was feeling nice. He rarely was. He never called him Ronald, though. For that Mac was eternally grateful.

Mac turned around and cleared his throat. 

“Yeah, dad?” his voice was smaller than he had hoped and it wavered on the last syllable, he opted to ignore it, hoping Luther would too.

“Get over here.” his father gestured toward himself.

“Yeah,” Mac quickly made his way to the run-down car next to which his father was standing. “What’s up?”

“Don’t… stand so close.” said Luther, holding his hands in front of him, making Mac take a step back from where he was standing. 

“Right, yeah, obviously,” Mac said, shaking his head. “I forgot. Sorry, dad.”

“Right,” Luther drawled, letting his hands fall slowly, clasping them in front of himself. “Anyways, Ronnie, I need your help with something.” his tone was level and calculated, as it always was. 

“Oh!” Mac lit up. “Like a work thing? I’ve been learning a lot of new stuff, actually, from working on that piece of shit-”

Luther held a hand out to silence Mac. 

“Yeah,” he paused, “a work thing. I need you to pick up a delivery tomorrow night. It’s important.”

“A delivery?” Mac inquired, his interest piqued. “What is it?”

“That shouldn’t concern you.” 

“Oh.” Mac said, deflated, then realization dawned on him. “ _Oh!_ Right. Yeah, of course I’ll do it!” 

Mac was pumped. His father didn’t normally let him in on his _business_ ventures. Mac only worked for Luther because he needed someone there to keep the shop looking legit while he was off doing God knows what (hopefully God _didn’t_ know). He had been able to squeeze Charlie into the deal by promising Luther he would do all of the grunt work in the shop for next to no money; it was true, the kid was desperate. 

“So where do I pick it up?”

Luther gave him the directions and Mac listened carefully, nodding along as he memorized every detail; he didn’t want to fuck this up. 

“Got it?” Luther asked. 

“Yup! Yeah, I got it.” 

“Good.” Luther said, drawing the word out for far longer than necessary. “That’s all, go away now, will you?”

“Yeah, of course, yeah.” Mac hurried out, turning on his heels and starting to walk back toward Charlie, who had been watching intently the whole time.

“Dude, what was that?” Charlie pressed as soon as Mac was standing next to him again.

“He said he wants me to pick something up tomorrow. Says it’s a _delivery._ ” Mac said, leaning in and putting emphasis on the last word.

“Oh shit, what do you think it is?”

“I’m thinkin’ drugs.” Mac said, clasping his hands together. It was a fair assumption; his father’s range of professional expertise stayed mainly in the heroin and blow aspect of things.

“Drugs, huh.”

“Of course it’s drugs, Charlie. What else would it be?” Mac furrowed his brow.

“I dunno,” Charlie said defensively, “bones?” he offered, raising an eyebrow.

“ _Bones?_ ” Mac hushed out, “Where the hell would he be getting bones from? And _why?_ ”

“They have that on the streets, Mac, I’m tellin’ you!” Charlie continued, unbothered. “It’s like a symbol for the… Look, it’s a thing, alright? I know it is.”

Mac pinched the bridge of his nose.

“My dad is not getting bones delivered to him, Charlie.” he said in one long exhale.

“Agree to disagree.” Charlie stated simply.

“No, Goddamnit, Charlie. I’m not agreeing!” He took a few deep breaths. “Oh, Jesus, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter.” he said mostly to himself, jerking his head like he was trying to shake the subject away. “What matters is that my dad is finally utilizing my abilities as a top-notch businessman.” he smirked and swatted Charlie lightly on the chest.

“Businessman? Really? Mac, your dad is in the mob. And not even the cool Italian one.”

Mac’s face fell into an angry frown. “Don’t talk about my dad like that, you son of a bitch!”

“Hey, I’m not the one getting bones delivered to me by the mob!”

“He’s not getting-” Mac was shouting again, incredibly frustrated. “Goddamnit! God _damnit._ ”

Charlie chuckled, sauntering off. 

  
  
  


  
  


_May 3rd_

The day went by painstakingly slow: Mac came to work at ten in the morning, fixed up the suicide knob on Murphy’s Ford – it had been torn off at a recent bash where things had escalated a bit too quickly (Mac may or may not have been involved,) – and got some lunch. Come two in the afternoon, he was slumped over the counter of Betsy’s Diner, sucking down the last ounce of a strawberry milkshake and some large fries. He chewed on the straw, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he was supposed to do later that night. He wasn’t scared, of course he wasn’t, but he couldn’t deny the slight anxious bounce of his leg when he thought about picking up the delivery for his father. What if he went to the wrong address? What if they didn’t give him the stuff and he had to come home empty-handed? Luther wouldn’t hesitate to whack him, he’d made that painfully clear. 

“Hey, toots!” Mac flagged down the waitress, who stomped over looking irritated. 

“My name isn’t ‘toots’,” she said in a truly unprofessional tone. Must’ve been one of those Women’s Empowerment activists or whatever. She was average looking, in a forgettable kind of way; her brown hair had been styled like the pin-up girls Mac saw on the covers of wives’ magazines at the store. She was dressed in a red-and-white striped apron with the diner’s logo – a woman with blonde hair, presumably Betsy herself – slowly peeling off from it.

“Alright, I’ll call you waitress then, is that better?” Mac snapped, rolling his eyes. “I’ll have another one of these,” he said, not as a question, lifting up his shake.

The Waitress stood there for a while, glaring, but eventually sighed and walked off with Mac’s glass. She refilled it and slammed it down on the counter with enough force to make it spill whipped cream over the edges. 

“Pay up,” she said, holding a hand out and not looking at Mac, instead peering over his shoulder at something. He didn’t care enough to see what it was.

Mac rifled through his jacket pockets for a crumpled five dollar bill and tossed it on the counter, from where it ended up falling to the linoleum floor. He gave a self-satisfied laugh, grabbed his milkshake and swaggered off to a nearby table, leaving the Waitress to fish the bill out with her foot, shooting him a mean look as she did.

The table he chose was occupied by two people, a guy and a girl who both looked to be about Mac’s age. They seemed rich, too – they were wearing much fancier clothes than really necessary. Arguably not the best place to sit for a guy like him, but there was no turning back now unless he wanted to look like an idiot. The girl at the table wasn’t very attractive, he thought; she was blonde, her eyes were big and looked like they were on the sides of her head. She looked like a bird. Maybe a fish if he was being generous. She was laughing, more of a squawk than anything, at the guy she was sitting with. He’d spilled ice cream on himself and looked absolutely livid. 

“Oh, no no no,” the girl said, turning abruptly to Mac and making a shooing gesture with one of her oversized hands. “You’re not sitting here, street trash.” 

“I’ll sit where I want.” said Mac, taken aback.

“No, actually you won’t, because we don’t want your greaser grease all over us, right, Dennis?” she grinned and turned to face the guy who was still wiping furiously at his now-ruined shirt.

He glanced up for the first time, giving Mac a quick once-over.

“Shut up, sis,” he began. (so that was his sister, Mac noted) He nodded to Mac with his stupid quirked eyebrow, “What’s your name, guy?”

Mac blinked at him in surprise. 

“Mac.”

The guy snorted, his sister giggling jarringly in response.

“Just Mac?” his tone sounded pretentious. Mac didn’t appreciate it.

“Yeah.” he snapped. “Got a problem with it?” his jaw was tense with growing irritation. 

“No, no.” he responded hurriedly. “You can sit down, Mac.” Mac didn’t enjoy feeling like he was being ordered around by a couple of yuppies but he obliged nonetheless.

The guy kept on talking for quite a long while. He introduced himself as Dennis Reynolds, and the girl’s name was Deandra. Twins, apparently. He explained that they were both students, (Deandra was a year behind, on account of spending the past year in a looney bin for a fire-related incident. She had gotten out due to bribery on her part) studying at the University of Pennsylvania; so Mac’s guess was right – they were rich. 

“So, I’m taking classes at Penn Vet, and Sweet Dee here is studying psychology.” Dennis explained, waving a single french fry around. “But if you ask me,” he said in an undertone, “she’s only doing that because she’s a little, y’know.” He made a twirling gesture with one finger around his ear, to signal that his sister was wackadoo.

“Asshole, I’m right here! I can hear you!” Dee yelled, affronted.

“Dee, I don’t give a shit.” Dennis snapped to his side. “God, what a bitch.” he directed this at Mac, choosing once again to ignore his sister’s presence.

Mac laughed.

“So, Mac,” Dennis said, “you in college?”

“Nah, never went.” Mac said, taking a long sip from his milkshake.

“He’s lower class, Dennis. He doesn’t have the money for it.” Sweet Dee said lazily, like it should have been obvious.

“Shut up, bitch! I have money!” he most definitely didn’t, but he wasn’t here to be disrespected.

“Then why aren’t you in school?” 

“School’s for nerds. I’m an independent thinker.” he puffed his chest out.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re much of a thinker, period.” she said. 

“Deandra, stop being such a bitch,” Dennis cut in, seemingly bored of the conversation at hand. Good for Dee, Mac thought. He was one snide comment away from choking her out. 

“That being said, what _do_ you do? If you’re not in school, I mean.” Dennis leaned on his elbows and made eye contact for the first time. He had blue eyes. His tone was less abrasive than Dee’s but still not exactly kind.

“I uh, I work.” Mac replied, “I’m a mechanic, at my dad’s shop down on South Street.” mechanic was kind of a stretch, but they didn’t need to know that.

“A mechanic,” Dennis repeated flatly, sounding unimpressed. What a prick. “So you really are a greaser, then.”

“Shut up.” 

Dennis looked at Mac for a long moment, with an expression that was hard to read. He only broke his gaze when Dee stood up abruptly and walked over to the counter. She appeared to be talking to the waitress from earlier and gesturing toward the stage near the jukebox.

“Oh, not again with this,” Dennis said, rolling his eyes. 

“With what?”

“Dee’s trying to become a singer, can you believe that?” Dennis said, shaking his head. “She can’t hold a note for longer than a nanosecond, and throws up when someone so much as looks at her. Unbelievable.” he eyed Mac for a few moments before continuing.

“And she doesn’t even remember the lyrics to any of the songs she ‘sings’” he said, emphasizing the last word with air quotes. “It’s pathetic, really.”

“Totally.” he wasn’t really all that interested in the matter. He just didn’t feel like talking, so he figured it would be easier to just let the other guy talk.

  
  


“Dennis, we gotta roll,” Dee’s abrasive voice called. “You need to drive me to campus, I’ve got class in 20 minutes.” she glanced at the clock.

Dennis rolled his eyes, finally ripping them from Mac’s. 

“Why don’t you drive yourself?” his voice was tight.

“You drove us here, asshole. Besides, I don’t have a car, not since _somebody_ crashed it into a tree.” 

“I literally have no idea what you’re referring to,” Dennis said, “and I don't care. Fine, whatever, let’s go.”

Dee grinned triumphantly and turned around, making a beeline for the door with long strides.

“Well, I gotta cut out. See you around, Mac.” Dennis said, standing up and taking his coat from the back of his chair.

“Yeah, see ya.”

Mac sat there gazing at the door for about ten minutes after the twins had left. Eventually he also got up, stretched, and walked out onto the street. 

  
  


Mac’s neck was steadily accumulating beads of sweat as he gave the building in front of him a long scan. The grimy brick establishment appeared to be an old tailor’s office that had been refurbished into a mob den and then never touched again. Shit was getting real for ol’ Mac. Granted, a shady building in a South Philly corner wasn’t an unusual place for a guy like him to be, but what made the situation just the tiniest bit unnerving was the very real possibility of getting kneecapped for any wrong move. Not that he didn’t know how to talk with mob people – he did, obviously. This was just his first time flying solo, or at all, and his dad had a lot riding on this deal. Presumably.

He knocked on the door once, twice, three times. It took a good while, but eventually the wooden pane opened a calculated few inches.

“Yes?” said the person who had opened the door. It was a very short, very fat bald man in a filthy undershirt and formal pants with suspenders; a real stereotype. He has a cigar in his mouth, it wasn’t lit.

“I– ” Mac’s voice was dry, he cleared his throat and swallowed. “I’m uh… I’m here on behalf of Luther? To pick something up?” he mustered out. He tried to make his neck higher, to seem more badass.

“Ahh.” the man said, looking Mac up and down. “You’re Luther’s kid, huh?”

“Uh… Yeah. Ro- Ronnie.” he grimaced slightly for having to use that name.

“Frank Reynolds.” the man’s eyes were narrow as he peered at Mac. _Reynolds?_ Probably a coincidence; he looked nothing like the twins from earlier.

Mac held out a clammy hand, Frank ignored him.

“Come right in.” he had a glint in his eye, which did not help Mac’s nerves. He opened the door wide enough for Mac to get a good view of what was inside.

There was one source of light in the room, a table lamp that was flickering and buzzing ominously. A thick cloud of smoke filled the space completely, making it hard to see. Or breathe. There were some crates and boxes on the ground, along with a pool table covered in some suspiciously sticky-looking, murky splotches staining the fabric. The floor probably hadn’t been vacuumed since the vacuum was invented; Mac had an overwhelming desire to pick up and dispose of some of the straw and tobacco dregs on the floor. He opted not to do so, as it probably wouldn’t fly well with these guys. The mess was a part of the unnerving charm of the place, Mac supposed. He lifted his eyes from the floor to look at the lot of slick-haired men occupying the space. In total there were about nine people in the room, all looking at Mac. He gulped a bit too audibly before stepping fully inside. Then there was silence.

“This here,” Frank gestured to Mac after a few moments, “is Ronnie.” 

Dead air.

“Luther’s kid.” he elaborated, prompting the apathetic crowd with an outstretched hand.

An echo of ‘ _ohh’s_ sounded through the room. A few guys shifted minutely in their seats, some stood up warily, like a pack of wolves inspecting a strange animal. One of them was a bit younger than the rest. Definitely taller than Mac, intimidating, high neck. The whole nine. He walked over to Mac and extended his hand. Mac shook it as firmly as he could. The guy looked him up and down with a blank expression. Mac’s stomach dipped.

“You here for the coke?” the guy asked.

Mac wasn’t exactly sure what he was there for, he hadn’t been briefed on that. The guy’s eyes were still on him. 

“Yeah.” he opted. Couldn’t go wrong with that.

The guy nodded. He disappeared into the back room and re-emerged a few moments later, holding a thing of white powder. He tossed it to Mac who, thankfully, caught it without fumbling. 

“Now, tell your dad we need the money by tuesday, _capisce?_ ”

“Yep, yep, yeah. I uh. I capisce.”

The man nodded again. His eyes were on the bag in Mac’s hand. Mac took the hint and quickly turned on his heels, stuffing the drugs inside the breast pocket of his jacket. He nodded goodbye to Frank and pushed the door open.

Once he was outside, he took his first real breath of the day. His heart was racing like the goddamn Secretariat still, and he was bursting at the seams with adrenaline. The cool breeze blowing past him was a welcome thing, so he breathed in as much of it as he could; exhaling was not a priority. He felt a rush of pride: that went well. 

He wanted to bask in the moment for a beat-or-two longer, but was interrupted by a not so pride-inducing wave of nausea coursing through his body up to his mouth, causing him to fold over and expel his insides onto the cracked pavement. 

“Jesus Christ,” said a voice from beside Mac. 

Mac spat out some more bile and slumped back against the brick wall. He screwed his eyes shut, they were hurting from all the retching.

“You alright?” the voice called again. Mac dimly recognized it from somewhere.

“’M fine.” he said bluntly.

Mac heard light footsteps crunching toward him on the sidewalk, stopping dead in front of his feet. There was a hand on his knee, jostling him a little until he opened his eyes. 

Oh, shit, he knew this guy. One part of a twin. Vet student.

“Dennis? Why are you-” another wave of nausea rocked him, causing him to turn his head and groan.

“You look like shit, dude.” 

“I don’t need your judgement. What are you doin’ here? Shouldn’t you be at your mansion or whatever?”

Dennis exhaled. He settled to sit down next to Mac, leaning his head back on the wall. Then Mac remembered: Reynolds.

“Holy shit,” he gestured to the windowless building and managed to splutter out, “wait, was that your da-” before Dennis' hand was clasped over his mouth, eyes pleading him to stay quiet. He flinched at the sudden contact. And the warmness of Dennis’ hand. 

“ _Please_ don’t call him that, but yes.”

Mac’s brow furrowed. He nodded a little, signaling at Dennis to remove his hand. 

“Oh my God, is that why you’re so rich? Drug money?” Mac asked in a hushed voice.

Dennis swatted him on the shoulder.

“No, asshole. Frank’s just into doin’ illegal shit in his downtime. He gets off on it or somethin’.”

Mac made a face, “Ewww, does he pound off in there?”

“Does he- what!? No! It’s a metaphor, moron. Jesus Christ.”

“You’re the one who said he gets off in there!”

Dennis took a long breath in. “No, I said he-” he let his breath out in a huff. “You know what, sure. He pounds off in there, I don’t give a shit.” 

“Called it.” Mac said smugly. Dennis shook his head, clearly trying to suppress a smile.

“Sure. We haven’t gotten to the more pressing question, though, which is _why_ were you puking your guts out on the sidewalk?”

“Oh. No reason. I don’t know. I wasn’t, really,”

“Jesus _Christ_ , you’re a horrible liar. I saw you go in there and come out with a bag of cocaine like two minutes ago.”

“What, this?” Mac patted his jacket pocket and his laugh came out far too high-pitched. “That’s not coke! That’s… uh… it’s bones.” he cringed.

“Bones.” Dennis repeated. “Bones? That’s the best you can come up with? Jesus on a cross, man.”

“They have that on the streets, dude!” Mac yelled in his most convincing voice.

“No, they absolutely do not! Wanna know how I know? Because I’m sitting here, on the street, with no bones present!”

Mac was quiet for a minute before mumbling, “You got bones in your body, dude.”

Dennis laughed a little at that. Mac didn’t think of anything else to say, so he didn’t. They just sat there, side by side, for a few tense minutes. A ridge in the brick wall was digging into Mac’s back but he didn’t feel like moving. He caught a brief glance of Dennis, who was sitting with one leg bent, making his pant leg ride up. Mac could see part of his shin, the skin looked smooth. He wondered if Dennis was cold. _Weird_ , he thought to himself as he shook his head. He stood up, spitting once more to get the sour taste of bile out of his mouth. 

Dennis looked up at him with big eyes. “You’re leaving?” he asked. Mac hated how whiny he sounded. Prick.

“Uh, yeah, I’m not gonna sit next to a puddle of vomit for the rest of the night.”

“Oh, yeah.” Dennis made a face at the ground in front of them. “You need a ride?” he smoothed the fabric of his trousers back over his leg and stood up.

Mac knit his brows together. “No thanks, I’m good. It’s only a couple of miles.”

“It’s gonna rain.” 

Mac looked up at the sky. It was clear.

“Look, dude, if you’re so desperate to drive me home, you can just say it.”

Dennis flushed. “I’m not desperate, I just don’t want you to get soaked and ruin those dr- sorry, _bones_.”

Mac rolled his eyes. He weighed his options and decided that hitching a ride with some rich asshole was better than getting massacred when he got home. 

“Fine.” 

“Alright, let’s go,” Dennis stepped forward and slung an arm around Mac’s shoulder like it was nothing. It was nothing, it meant _nothing_.

  
  


The drive was mostly silent, apart from Mac giving directions every now and then, and Dennis muttering a _yeah_. He was humming a song that Mac didn’t recognize, smooth and low, occasionally tapping on the steering wheel where there probably would have been drums or something. Mac settled for listening quietly, it was sort of calming. When they arrived at the shop – Mac had told Dennis to drop him off there instead of his house, he didn’t feel like showing some stranger his shitty home – Mac turned to Dennis before opening the door. 

“Thanks for the ride, man.” he said before stepping out of the car.

“No problem,” Mac expected that to be it, but then,

“You know, the brakes have been actin’ up on this beast here,” he slapped the dashboard of his Chevy, Mac grimaced. _Beast?_ “they’ve been all squeaky and shit. Any idea on what that might be?” he flicked his gaze away briefly.

“Oh,” said Mac, “that’s probably just the pads stickin’ together, you’d need to get that oiled. Stop by the shop some time and I’ll take a look at it, yeah?”

Dennis looked like he was pondering.

“Yeah, maybe I will.” 

Mac closed the door and nodded once at Dennis, who returned the gesture with a little wave and drove off. If Mac couldn’t shake the flush that rose high on his cheeks for the rest of the night, it meant nothing.


	2. put your head on my shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac blinked his eyes open and, God, he really shouldn’t have; Dennis was close.

_ May 12th _

Mac sat by the window of the shop, watching the OPEN- sign flicker and buzz like it was dying on the other side of the glass. It was giving him a headache. The O was almost burnt out. They should really get that fixed. He’d been sitting there for the better part of an hour – business was even slower than usual today. He took a sip of the beer in his hand and grimaced; it had long since passed the stage of lukewarm. He set the bottle down and pulled out a crumpled pack of Marlboros from his back pocket. He sighed: there were only three left in the pack that he had bought yesterday. He’d have to make another run to the kiosk and Charlie would make Mac buy him a pack too. Goddamnit. He pulled one out and stuck it between his lips. It was damp, for some reason. 

He ended up smoking the rest of the pack out in quick succession, never breaking eye contact with the sign outside. 

Mac had always had a tendency to let his mind wander. More often than he would like to admit, it happened in situations where it definitely shouldn’t: school, when given directions, the gym (the locker room), late at night. Right now he thought about the preppy twins from the diner, thought about the thing in the alley and twins’ father’s secret drug business. He thought about the ride home, wondered if the guy, Dennis, was ever going to follow through with his promise. Not that Mac cared about whether or not he showed up. Or if he did, it was only because the shop could really use the business, that was all. 

Suddenly, a familiar high voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Dude, why d’you look like that?”

Mac jumped, clearing his throat on reflex.

“Like what?” he asked.

“Like, lookin’ out the window, all yearning and shit. It’s weird.” explained Charlie.

“I’m not  _ yearning _ , how do you even know that word?” Mac replied a tad more defensively that necessary for the accusation, “I’m just thinking about the shop.” It was a half–truth, at least. 

Charlie narrowed his eyes like he was thinking about something. It wasn’t a good look on him. 

“Whatever you say, man,” he said, raising his eyebrows, noncommittal. 

Mac rolled his eyes. He didn’t feel like following Charlie’s comings or goings, or doing any work of his own, so he decided now was a good time to hit the store for those cigarettes and more beers.

The gig had been over a week ago, but Mac was still feeling the leftover dregs of adrenaline from it. It was in the way he bounced on his feet, the way his face got hot when he thought about that night. The job, of course, nothing else. Nothing else at all.

Luther had been pleased when Mac gave him the drugs. He hadn’t said it, he never did, but Mac could tell. Maybe it was just the fact that he hadn’t threatened to end Mac’s life even  _ once _ during the entire exchange. Mac counted that as a win. 

Mac ended up walking to the park, instead of back to the shop, after buying two packs of cigarettes and a six-pack of the cheapest, yeastiest beer he could find. It was pretty fucking gross, but he wasn’t a millionaire, for Christ’s sake. He sat down on a park bench in front of some old, rusty statue that was probably built during the revolution or something, and lit a cigarette. Then another. Then the taste made his tongue scratchy so he cracked open a beer. 

His mind was busy with nothing as he sat there, perusing the metal fixture in front of him. His leg was bouncing up and down, it almost always was, and his mind was playing some song on repeat that made it impossible to think. He should ask Luther about setting him up with another gig. Maybe that Frank guy wanted another sale? Maybe Dennis would be there again, that would be cool. So Mac could ask him about the car, of course. He shook himself out of his thoughts but couldn’t do anything about the heat simmering on his cheeks. 

  
  


_ May 28th _

Mac was on the brink of death, leaning against the shitty, grimy fridge in the back office of the shop, eyes closed in momentary bliss. It was a slower-than-slow Thursday afternoon. He’d been neglecting his work all day again, hadn’t even bothered to unlock the door. Not that anyone cared, it was pouring down outside, no one would leave their house today. Even Charlie was home today, had claimed to have caught some stomach bug from a rat or something. In all fairness it could very well be the truth. Who knew what the kid was up to these days.

There was a quiet knock, a steady  _ tap tap tap _ on the window that sported the OPEN– sign, now only saying PEN in neon pink letters. They should  _ really _ get that fixed. Mac peeked one eye open with a long-suffering sigh. He squinted at the watery, blurred window and caught sight of a guy, a young guy, Dennis goddamn Reynolds, with his picture-perfect curls plastered to his forehead by the rain, looking all kinds of annoyed. A more firm  _ tap, tap,  _ a pause, a  _ taptaptaptaptap _ and then the guy was playing the window like a set of bongo drums. Mac was sure he’d end up breaking a nail or something. Dennis seemed like the kind of guy to care about that shit. Mac took pity on him, so he left his blissfully cool and  _ dry _ haven in the back room and walked to the door. He took his sweet time opening the door, just to fuck with Dennis, who looked ready to murder someone.

“Jesus Christ, took you long enough,” he exhaled as he pushed his way in past Mac, groaning when he stepped into the shop, shaking out his sleeves and spraying water everywhere.

“Uh, hello to you too, guy,” Mac said, snorting incredulously. 

“Yeah, whatever. I’m here about the brakes, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Mac, a slight flush burning at the back of his neck as his mind brought up that night, the arm thrown around his shoulder, the way he’d listened to this half-stranger’s voice humming something sweet and melodic and felt a calm he hadn’t remembered feeling, well, probably ever. He shook his head on reflex.

“Yeah. So, get on it, or whatever.” Dennis seemed frustrated, like he’d expected Mac to jump straight to work at the sight of his car and a stack of bucks. Rich people. 

“Jesus, give me a second, alright?” Mac rolled his eyes.

Dennis ended up driving the car inside the garage at Mac’s request; he really didn’t want to get soaked working on some prick’s car in the middle of a goddamn storm. Mac got to work on lubing the brakes, working mechanically, out of habit while Dennis just stood there like an idiot.

The side of Mac’s neck was burning as if he was being watched, so he glanced to his side, only to find Dennis studying some scratch on the hood of his car with apparent laserlike focus. His cheekbones seemed red. It was pretty cold out, though. Mac shook himself of his thoughts and resumed his work. 

  
  
  


_ June 10th _

Mac’s throat was burning as he inhaled the thick black cloud. He immediately erupted in a fit of coughing, waving the rag he grabbed from his shoulder around, trying desperately to disperse the pungent smoke that was filling the air. His eyes were watering.

“Jesus shit, dude!” he croaked and coughed some more smoke into his elbow, slamming the hood of the car shut so hard it echoed in his ears for a few seconds.

“Hey, hey, hey! Go easy on her.” Dennis lunged forward and started petting on his car like a giant fucking weirdo.

“Dude, I don’t know how to put this gently, but… ” explained Mac, “your car is a piece of shit.” he winced, preparing for Dennis' reaction. The dude was weird about his car.

“Hey!” Dennis yelled, affronted and one hundred percent predictable, “my amazing, _erotic_ vehicle is a 1953 Chevrolet. It’s not my fault you’re a child who only likes cars that bounce up and down.” 

“You take that back,” Mac said, pointing an accusatory finger, “Lowriders are an important piece of the American cultural fabric and y–”

“And I’m a preppy dick who doesn’t understand anything outside my goddamn silver spoon. I know, Mac, we’ve had this conversation literally every single time I’ve come in here.”

“We wouldn’t have to if you showed some respect,” Mac muttered, picking up a wrench and starting to screw off some bolts.

Indeed, Dennis had been stopping by the shop quite regularly since the first time he came there to get his brakes fixed, which was about two weeks ago. It was no wonder, honestly: his car really _ was _ a piece of shit, Mac hadn’t been lying about that. First he’d come in with a busted spark plug, then a dent that needed to be straightened out, and now his engine was spewing smoke and sparks every time he started the crummy thing up. 

“I mean, at this point, couldn’t you just get a new car?” Mac pleaded. “You gotta have the money for it, I mean,” he gestured to Dennis, from his spot sitting on the floor, who was wearing ridiculously fancy clothes considering his current whereabouts and the likeliness of getting covered in motor oil.

“I could,” Dennis started, scratching absently at his chin, “but I’m not going to.”

“Why?”

“Why would I? This car is who I  _ am _ , man!” 

Mac hummed. “I don’t know, dude,” he scrunched his face in thought and shrugged, “I think you could do better.”

Dennis jerked his head backwards a little and narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean, better?”

“Nothing, just, like, maybe something less clunky and  _ red _ .”

Dennis looked taken aback.

“What’s wrong with red?” he actually sounded like Mac had shaken his confidence about his car. 

“I dunno, I just think somethin’ like, darker, might suit you better. Like, blue or green or something.” Mac gestured nonchalantly with his hands. “Just sayin’,”

“Oh.” Dennis looked away and scratched at the back of his neck. His ears were pink. “How do you figure?”

“Dude, I was just saying!” he raised his hands in surrender. “I just think blue looks better on you. Whatever, forget I said anything.” He could feel his own cheeks warming. Goddamn it.

Dennis cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

Mac shook his head. 

“Whatever, I’m done here, this car is a pain in my ass,” he threw his wrench on the ground with a clang, “pay me.”

Dennis stayed still, just kind of looking at Mac with deep thought on his face. It was creepy. 

“Hello?” Mac waved a hand in front of Dennis.

“Wanna go to the movies with me?”

“Huh?” Mac took a step back, tried to laugh but nothing came out. “What, you askin’ me on a date or somethin’?” he was aiming for sarcastic but couldn’t tell if he’d succeeded. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. 

Dennis snorted.

“Yeah, sure.” he rolled his eyes. “There’s this new one playing at the drive-in on Tuesday, I want you to come.”

“Why me?” Mac asked, bewildered.

Dennis ignored him. 

“I’ll pick you up at eight, yeah?” 

Mac couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but nod.

After Dennis had left, he allowed himself to smile.

  
  
  


_ June 14th _

They rolled up at the South City drive-in just as  _ The Young Philadelphians  _ was starting up, because obviously Dennis would want to see a movie about Philly. While the Warner Brothers’ logo flickered to life on the wall, Dennis parked the car. Despite being more than a little bit late and having to harass some pussy admissions-booth worker into letting them in, they ended up finding a decent spot: near the screen but secluded enough that they were still a good distance away from the few other cars that were posted up there; neither of them were in the mood to be dealing with gross high-school couples all but banging directly next to them. Dennis tactically positioned his car so that the cargo bed was facing the movie screen, making for a better place to sit on while they watched.

Mac pushed the passenger side door and it opened with a grating  _ screech _ . He hopped up out of the car and landed on the gravel which crunched under his boots like old snow. He strode over to the back of the Chevy, where Dennis was setting… something up. This whole situation was so bizarre. 

“Dude, really?” Mac inquired, while Dennis pulled out a truly massive heap of various quilts and such from the backseat of the pickup. “Blankets?”

“Hell  _ yes _ , Mac, I brought blankets!” Dennis replied, slightly strained from hefting said items. The guy was in horrible shape, Mac noted. “What did you think, that I was gonna sit on cold–ass metal for two straight hours?”

“Guess not.” Mac chewed on his cheek, “Don’t you think it’s weird, though?”

Dennis cocked an eyebrow and tilted his head like a confused puppy. It was fucking infuriating. 

“How so?”

Mac hurried to elaborate. “I mean, it’s just– two dudes hauled up together at a drive-in, all bundled under blankets ‘n’ shit?”  – he looked around briefly – “I just don’t want anybody thinkin’... _ you know _ .” he said emphatically, praying Dennis would understand without further explanation. He would rather die than say  _ it  _ out loud.

  
“Right.” Dennis said, his jaw tightening slightly. “Well, there’s nobody else here, is there?” He gave a genuine-looking smile although his voice had gone colder, different.

“I s’pose not.” Mac's eyes were studying the gravel intently. He didn’t really understand Dennis' argument, but something told him it would be safer, better, to just trust Dennis on this and ask questions later.

He settled for watching quietly from the sidelines as Dennis lined the cargo bed with his array of blankets (and pillows, apparently) and pulled out a cooler of beers along with a bag of popcorn. Mac had to admit that it looked like a comfortable setup. Dennis hopped up on the bed of the pickup, scooting until his back was against the metal body of the car. He pulled some blankets over himself and shuffled so that he was almost laying down, propped up on some expensive looking throw pillows with an ugly floral print – he’d probably stolen them from his folks’ house.

“Well?” Dennis said, patting the empty space next to him with his right hand.

Mac snorted and rolled his eyes before muttering, “Yeah, alright.” and climbed up onto the cargo bed with noticeably less finesse than Dennis. He mumbled some half-assed excuse about losing mobility as you get more muscular, but it didn’t matter because Dennis didn’t seem to be listening to him at all. His eyes were already fixed on the screen when Mac plopped down rather awkwardly next to him, making sure to keep an appropriate distance and to not touch him at all. 

“Pass me one of those, would ya?” Mac asked, pointing in the approximate direction of the beers with a repetitive ‘gimme’ gesture.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.” Dennis said distractedly, reaching into the cooler without taking his eyes off the movie. He passed Mac the beer quickly, stopping him in his tracks when he accidentally flung the hand holding the bottle directly against Mac’s face. Dennis' fault for not looking. The backs of his fingers touched Mac’s jaw. 

Mac flinched. 

He whispered a quiet 'thanks' and took the bottle from Dennis' hand, which lingered near Mac’s skin for a few moments too long. Mac's eyes, in turn, were transfixed steadily on the side of Dennis' face. He forced himself to glue his gaze to the screen instead. His neck started to prickle after a few moments, so he took a long swig of his beer and turned back to face Dennis, who was looking at him. His eyes had gone all squinty and focused like he was studying Mac. Dennis promptly swung his head back around to face the screen and cleared his throat. He twisted his hands in his lap and shuffled in his seat until he was fully laying down. Dennis’ knee brushed against Mac’s shin, making him jump slightly from the contact, but he didn’t pull away. Mac leaned ever so faintly into the pressure, even when it made his body itch all over and his stomach all floaty. 

The minutes ticked by as the movie went on and on and on and on, it was almost pitch-black in the increasingly chilly outdoors. Their legs were still touching, the contact sending sparks down, all the way to the soles of his feet, when Mac slinked down onto the soft pillows and matched Dennis' position. Now they were knee-to-knee. Mac nudged Dennis' foot with his own impossibly lightly, fake-yawning as he did so as not to look obvious. It probably wasn’t all that convincing, but at least Dennis didn’t seem to mind. He loosely tangled Mac’s ankle with his own under the covers.

Mac turned to look at Dennis at just the wrong moment, when his features were softened by the light of the setting Philadelphia sun, which was spilling orange over his face and dancing along his skin. He looked radiant, there was really no other word for it. His hair was falling down on his face, curls no longer pampered to perfection. Mac preferred it this way; Dennis always tried much harder than he really needed to, with features like that. He had a popcorn crumb in the corner of his mouth, and Mac was itching with the desire to swipe it off. 

He must have been staring for too long because suddenly Dennis shuffled, turning over onto his right side and facing Mac with a quizzical expression. Mac tensed; this change in position meant Dennis being a lot closer than he had been before. 

“Uh,” Mac began, putting all of his effort into keeping his voice steady and his eyes off Dennis'. “What’s up, man?” he forced a chuckle, though it came out as more of a distressed laugh. 

“‘M tired.” Dennis slurred. He wasn’t  _ that  _ drunk, so Mac figured he was either really sleepy or faking it, although Mac didn’t understand why he would.

“It’s like, not even nine o’clock, bro.” Mac argued. “What are you, forty?”

Dennis lifted his head to glare and raised his eyebrows in affrontement. “I got a right to be tired, I’m busting my ass in school.” he mumbled, slumping dramatically back into the pillows, this time with his eyes closed.

“Oh, yeah, right,” Mac scoffed, “Poor little rich boy has it too hard, sitting on a gold chair in college on his daddy’s buck.” 

“Shut the fuck up, dude, like you do anything but sit around in that shop, looking pretty.” Dennis said lazily, voice slightly muffled by the pillow, but clear enough that there was no way of denying what he had said.

“I– That–,” Mac tried his best to not give away the fact that he was blushing a little. "That's not even true, I do all kinds of shit–"

“Oh, unclench, you moron.” Dennis rolled his eyes, “It’s an expression.”

Mac stayed silent and turned to the screen, a move that seemed to annoy Dennis even more. A strange occurrence, really; he usually hated it when Mac talked. 

Mac chewed on his cheek and fiddled nervously with the blanket, enough so that Dennis noticed.

“Hey,” he smacked Mac on the arm irritatedly, trying to solicit a reaction. “Get out of your head, dick.” his voice was sharp, but Mac could hear something else woven between the words, something he didn’t want to think enough about to give a name to.

“I’m not in my head,” Mac retorted levelly, grinding his teeth. “I’m watching a movie, unlike some people.”

Dennis scoffed and shook his head. He turned over so he was on his back again, putting more inches between them; four, maybe five. Not that Mac was keeping track. They weren’t knee-to-knee anymore. It didn’t matter.

Mac had completely lost track of the movie by now. Some guy named Tony was monologuing. 

Dennis was looking at Mac. He could feel it with every nerve ending in his body. He refused to give in to the burning feeling in his chest and turn his head. So he didn’t. Not when Dennis' hand made a slow and carefully thought-out path to the side of Mac’s left thigh and stayed there, burning a hole in his skin and paralyzing him where he lay. Not when it touched the tips of his fingers, turning them to dust before his eyes. Not even when his pinky curled ridiculously loosely around Mac’s, so light it was like a phantom of a touch, but so firm he couldn’t move if he tried. Not that he would. 

No, Mac never gave in and _looked_ – looking would make it real, and this wasn’t real, _this wasn’t real_ – but the rules said nothing about touching. Just a little reciprocation. ‘Dennis started it,’ he could hear his brain say. 

He responded with his own hand by edging it closer to Dennis', building pressure, covering more skin. Dennis pulled away for a beat-and-a-half and Mac’s heart sank approximately to the core of the Earth and then some. It raced back up, though, full-force, when Dennis took his hand in his own for real this time, entwining their fingers properly. Mac hated how it fit just right, like a missing limb had been reattached. It meant  _ nothing _ .

Mac was drilling his gaze into the screen  – almost sure it would break in two if he looked any harder  – not allowing himself even the slightest movement. He knew if he let himself look back at Dennis, he wouldn’t be able to turn away. He didn’t know what he might do. He could still feel Dennis' eyes burning the skin on the side of his face, but he ignored it. He also ignored it when Dennis edged inches and inches closer to his body. He ignored it as hard as he could. 

Until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. 

The breaking point was when Dennis' cheek fell against Mac’s shoulder, and he felt – more so than heard – Dennis sighing against him in a way that made his heart grow two sizes and move 3 miles outside his body. His lungs shriveled and dried, the low walls of the cargo bed felt like they were going to collapse over him at any second, trapping him there forever. The catch, however, was that he was already trapped forever. 

He swiftly pulled his hand free and shrugged Dennis off of him, soliciting a confused noise and making his head fall limply onto the pillows. Mac backed up until he was in the corner of the cargo bed caging him. He was breathing unsteadily. Dennis was sitting up now, too. His face was clouded in worry and honest-to-god confusion.

Mac opened and closed his mouth fruitlessly for a few seconds, couldn’t get the words out.

“Hey, hey,” Dennis said calmly, shushing him quietly. “it’s alright, okay?” his hands were raised in a ‘please don’t attack _ ’ _ posture, and Mac wanted to scream. 

Mac swatted Dennis' hands away and turned his head, but the hands found their way back up and onto his shoulders in a matter of seconds, like they never left. The contact was far too much. Dennis rubbed slightly on Mac’s shoulders before raising his hands a few inches off his skin. He was still shushing lowly, like he was calming down a feral animal.

“Dennis– You know I–” 

Dennis quietly cupped Mac’s cheeks in both hands. It felt  _ right.  _

“I know, okay, I know.” he said softly.

Mac’s breathing was coming down, all of his senses overrun by Dennis, Dennis,  _ Dennis _ . His face mere inches from Mac’s own, his warm hands firm on Mac’s cheeks. His voice sweet and promise-filled like warm honey but unreliable and dangerous like thick black tar. His eyes were calm,  _ seemed _ calm, with a splash of fear masked beneath the calculated exterior. Mac was still frantic, but Dennis  _ knew _ ; that was the important part. Dennis knew that Mac wasn’t like… like… like he wasn’t supposed to be. Dennis  _ knew _ . And God knew, too. Mac was sure of it; he made sure to tell Him personally as often as he could, and as a favour, God kept away those urges and temptations as best as he could. 

Mac was breathing more steadily now, but Dennis hadn’t yet removed his hands from his cheeks. Instead, he was rubbing steadily back-and-forth along Mac’s cheekbones with both of his thumbs. Mac screwed his eyes shut for a moment or two and just relished in the soothing movement of Dennis' thumbs without thinking too hard about it. He breathed. He kept on breathing, until Dennis changed the placement of his hands, moving one to the back of his neck – not before carding it through Mac’s hair – keeping the other one planted steady on his cheek. Mac blinked his eyes open and, God, he really shouldn’t have; Dennis was close. They were almost forehead-to-forehead. Dennis' eyes flickered to Mac’s mouth and back, a question shimmering through. Mac leaned in just a fraction of an inch. 

He felt Dennis’ breath on him and pulled back abruptly. 

“Dude, seriously,” he shoved Dennis by the chest with one hand. “We’re in public.” his voice was hushed.

“So?” Dennis tried to lean back in.

Mac grabbed him by the shoulders, hard, and looked him in the eye. “ _ So _ ? So, you can’t be doin’ this shit! Someone could see us.” his heart was starting to race again after being at a full stop for the past half an hour. 

“ _ I _ can’t be doing this shit?” There was a hint of accusation in Dennis’ words.

Mac’s cheeks burned. He shook his head minutely and put on the facade of a more threatening voice, “Shut the fuck up. This – it didn’t happen, alright? It’s not  _ going _ to happen.” he was serious. This wasn’t who he was. It was all Dennis' fault, really, for being so goddamn… whatever. Nothing. Shit. Mac could still get out of this; it was like baseball, one strike was nothing. Thoughts were a whole separate issue, obviously, they didn’t count.

“Mac, it’s okay. Nobody has to know.”

“No, dude, you’re not getting it! I’m not– I’m not like this, I’m not like  _ you _ !” Mac was pleading now; he needed Dennis to understand.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, ‘you’re not like me?’” Dennis spat. He had the gall to look offended, as if Mac was the one at fault here. 

Mac was angry, huffing, and he wanted to smack the life out of Dennis. Even more than that, he really wanted to be close to him again, hold him again. 

“Fuck you.” he opted instead.

Dennis sighed and rubbed at his face with both hands.

“Look, Mac, it’s not– we don’t need to– this doesn’t have to be like a whole  _ thing _ ,” the sound of his voice was desperate, rambling. “we can just… we can just  _ be _ , you know?”

Mac bit the inside of his cheek. 

“What do you mean by that?” he asked quietly.

Dennis sighed again. 

“I mean– we can just do what we wanna do, we don’t have to think about it that much. Nobody’s gotta know.”

Mac swallowed. Dennis drove a hard bargain. 

Mac didn’t say anything for a while.

“Nobody?” he eventually asked. Softly, hopefully.

“Nobody.” Dennis brushed back a stray strand of Mac’s hair with soft fingers. 

Mac nodded. He closed his eyes and laid himself back on the cushions. Dennis curled up next to him, hardly touching but still so, so close. 

They breathed together.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading <3 
> 
> thank you to henna for betaing this chapter for me at 2am. u are the mvp
> 
> edit:chapter 3 is probably gonna be a bit longer so stay tuned for that


	3. this i swear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the gang celebrates fourth of july and stuff happens i guess

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi just a quick disclaimer: charlie and dee in this fic are just friends. nothing sexual. underlined.

_June 20th_

“So you’re telling me,” Mac said, taking another swig from his beer, “that you just– you just have a maid that cleans up after you?”

“No,” said Sweet Dee, “our _parents_ do, we just happen to live in the same house as them. And there’s _three_ maids, all for different things.”

“Oh,” said Charlie, cocking his head to the side, “is one of ‘em for bangin’? Like a bang maid?”

A chorus of _eeew_ ’s echoed through the room. Mac could see Dennis shaking his head from the corner of his eye. 

Oh, yeah. They had all become somewhat of a group, the four of them. A gang, one could even say. It was pretty sweet. They fit well together. The twins were not nice people, not even by the worst of standards, but there was something about them; something that shone through their snobby exteriors. Something relatable. Familiar, even. 

They had taken up the habit of getting drunk together whenever the twins could make it out of school, either at the twins’ house or at a randomized location. Today was a Reynolds’ basement kind of day.

“I mean, I wouldn’t put it past Frank to have a bang maid, but I also don’t think that’s a thing that exists,” Dennis said thoughtfully. 

“Are you sure, though? I feel like he’s definitely bangin’ one or more of those broads,” said Mac. 

He and Dennis hadn’t been alone together much since the drive-in almost a week ago, much less talked about the ordeal. Sure, there were the snuck-off glances, and the touches that lingered for just a blink too long, but it was nothing on-lookers couldn’t brush off as normal. Mac liked to relish in those moments. Any stranger wouldn’t think twice of them, but Mac knew they were just threads in a bigger fabric. 

But Dennis hadn’t brought up that night, and Mac sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to say it out loud. To be the one to break the spell. 

He often thought about what his father would say, if he knew about it. Truth be told, Luther probably wouldn’t say anything; he was always more a man of action than of words. Mac’s chest got tight as he thought about it. The reaction could also have been brought on by Dennis slapping his hand down on Mac’s thigh. Most likely it was a combination of the two, with a splash of Dennis smiling at him breezily.

“I’m pretty certain.” Dennis said, and Mac had to rewind the conversation in his head to remember what he had even asked in the first place. He needed to stop getting so distracted.

_July 2nd_

“Dude!” Charlie yelled, bursting into Mac’s bedroom, manic energy shining through from every movement.

Mac blinked awake and wiped at his face. “Huh?”

“I just heard they’re doing a fireworks show at Lemon Hill on Sunday! Bro, we _have_ to go.” 

Mac sat up in his bed, groggy and irritated since it was only 10AM on his only day off from work. Charlie’s sleep schedule was always off the rails for some reason or another, so they had agreed he could come over to Mac’s house whenever he pleased. It was times like this that made Mac regret the arrangement.

“Shit, really?” he threw the blanket off of himself and stood up from the bed, albeit stiffly. “That’s cool,”

“Yeah!” Charlie was absolutely beaming, pacing the room. “I heard about it from Sweet Dee.”

“Sweet Dee?” Mac made a face. “Gross, dude, please tell me she’s not coming with us.” 

“Come on, she’s not _that_ bad.” Charlie was right, she wasn’t, but Mac wasn’t about to admit something like that.

“Whatever, you can hang out with her, then.” 

Charlie paused and gave Mac a confused look. Then he smiled.

“Ohhh. I see,” he drawled, nodding.

Mac immediately felt more awake. Alert, was the appropriate word for it. He absolutely hated it when Charlie got that weird, knowing look on his face. The kid was oddly intuitive, was the worst part. He knew too much, got in your head.

Mac knit his brows together.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Come _on_ dude,” Mac huffed.

“If you insist,” Charlie raised his hands in mock-surrender and continued, mostly to himself. “I was just gonna say that if you just wanna hang out with Dennis, that’s fine by me,” he said in that annoying suggestive voice of his, looking everywhere except at Mac. 

Mac’s heart stopped and he felt like his feet were sinking into the floor. 

“Charlie,” He warned. His jaw was set and he could feel his blood heating, becoming lava, and then immediately going ice-cold with dread, going stiff. He was honestly going to have a heart attack, probably.

Charlie continued, in a daze, “No, dude, I _understand_!” 

“ _Charlie,_ you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Mac gritted out, trying his best to keep his voice level. His hands were curling into fists.

And then, because Charlie _really_ doesn’t know how to shut up, he said, “Young love, you know? It’s a beautiful thing, really–” he rambled on for a while until Mac couldn’t take it anymore.

“Just, shut _up_!” Mac snapped, shoving Charlie back by the shoulders. Charlie stumbled backwards, seemingly unfazed. It was so goddamn irritating.

“Jesus, I was just kidding,” he said, dusting off his shoulder and raising his eyebrows like Mac was the crazy one.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mac repeated, quieter this time, voice faltering just the tiniest bit.

“I’m sure I don’t.” Charlie mused, eyeing Mac’s face all over. 

They ended up dropping the matter at hand in favor of lighting shit on fire outside. Mac couldn’t really get excited, though. He was screwed. 

_July 4th_

The grass was cold and damp under him, seeping through Mac’s clothes as he lay on the dewed lawn in Fairmount Park. It was almost 8PM and the fireworks were about to start. He could hear music coming from somewhere. Charlie was there with him because the twins were off somewhere doing rich people stuff with their parents. They had sworn they’d show up eventually, but they were never to be taken for their word. It was fine, though; Mac and Charlie had been a great duo since they were kids, they didn’t need anyone else, they worked. Still – still, Dennis and Sweet Dee, mostly Dennis, weaved into their lives so easily, so effortlessly, it was hard to imagine that it wasn’t part of the Divine plan, that it wasn’t meant to be. 

Mac took another drag from his cigarette and nodded along to Charlie’s insane story about… worms? Spiders? Who knew. He was sitting with his knees tucked into his chest under a big oak tree. They’d sat there because it had been raining earlier. The downside to the momentary shelter was the fact that water was dripping down from the leaves long after the sky had cleared. They were too comfortable to move, though.

“So I’m covered in them, right? They’re on me, they’re in me, they’re _everywhere_ ,”

“Jesus,” called Dennis’ voice from behind Mac.“What the _hell_ have I walked into?” 

“Oh, hey Dennis,” said Charlie, “I’m just telling Mac about the spider’s nest I found in my house.”

“A _nest_?” Sweet Dee appeared from somewhere, leaning on the tree, “That’s cool.”

Charlie’s eyes lit up. It wasn’t all that often that someone actually took an interest in his bizarre adventures. 

“I know, right?” he immediately launched into a speedy, incoherent story involving a broom, eggs, and for some reason, a dead fish. 

Dennis kicked Mac in the shin.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” Mac looked at him, then looked away and scooted sideways to make room. He’d tried to be more wary of Dennis’ presence after what Charlie had said, but it was harder than it sounded.

Dennis sat down next to him. He always took up so much space. Despite being by no means a big person, Dennis was in every corner of Mac’s senses, his field of vision, at all times. Even the way he smelled –fresh, with a heavy splash of some expensive cologne Mac probably couldn’t pronounce– was so goddamn overwhelming and addictive. 

“Give me a smoke?” Dennis flashed a smile. Goddamn him.

Mac debated saying no, but that was a losing battle. He silently handed Dennis the cigarette he’d been smoking and leaned back against the tree. Mac closed his eyes. He hated the effect Dennis had on him, hated it more than he could describe. He kept his eyes closed when he felt Dennis’ hand, warm on his leg, almost hesitant in its ways. When he let out a long, almost relieved breath, the hand went ahead and tightened its grip just a little bit. They were hidden, mostly, from the rest of the crowd. Mac placed his own hand on top of Dennis’ and squeezed.

Charlie and Dee glanced at them and then shared a look, and Mac’s heart stopped. He almost pulled his hand away, but before he could panic, the two had already turned away and were talking loudly over each other.

Mac was grateful. His heart started up again.

Dennis shifted even closer to Mac’s body than he already was, closer than the laws of nature could possibly allow. He flipped his palm over and Mac began tracing meaningless patterns on it. Dennis’ fingers twitched toward Mac’s own ever so slightly; Mac took the chance and stilled them with his fingertips and let them stay there, tapping up and down on the pads in a rhythm that was erratic but gentle. His chest tightened for a second before unfurling down his body in a landslide of something– something hard to parse. Something new. Something good.

A loud bang erupted from the sky, startling them both. The two, too caught up in each other, had failed to notice the fireworks had started. The crowd down the hill cheered, as if they’d never seen something so magical. Mac glanced at Dennis, pressed against his side, and couldn’t help but agree. 

After about an hour and a half of sitting and drinking, the air and grass got too cold to bear, so they left. They decided to keep the party going at the Reynolds’ mansion. They were all in such a good buzz, it would have been a shame to call it a night so early.

  
  


In short, that is how they ended up completely wasted on the ugly, carpeted floor of the mansion’s living room. 

“This carpet is like, it’s the soft– softest thing I’ve ever been on,” Mac said in awe. He was laying on the floor and making a pretend-snow angel in the carpet.

Dennis laughed at that, even though Mac didn’t think it was very funny. 

“Nah, dude,” Dennis began. He was also laying on the floor, face down with his cheek squished, bottle of whiskey in one hand. “I’ve got this– this rug upstairs in my room. It’s like… Oriental or something. Now that, that is _soft_.” 

Everyone hummed in distant agreement. Well, everyone except Charlie, who was passed out cold under the coffee table. Dee was sitting on the couch with her feet resting on Charlie’s stomach. Her shoes were off and she kept curling her toes in the fabric of Charlie’s shirt. 

“I’m bored,” Dee announced to the room, pressing her giant fucking feet down on Charlie, who only grunted a little in his sleep. “We should play a game.” 

“No, come on Dee, I’m spent.” Dennis said, words muffled on account of the carpet. 

“Yeah. Plus, Deandra, there’s only three of us. No game’s any fun with three people.” Mac affirmed.

Dee sighed dramatically and pulled her feet up onto the couch, sitting criss-cross applesauce on the cushions. She picked up a half-empty bottle of beer and drained it effortlessly, an ability which Mac envied. It seemed to be some kind of twin thing, too; Dennis could also chug drinks no problem.

“How’s about a game of truth or dare?” Dee asked, wiggling the bottle in the air. 

Dennis breathed in deep, then out. Mac watched his back rise and fall. He was too drunk to stop himself from noticing the way Dennis’ lips parted when he exhaled. 

“Fine,” said Dennis. 

  
  


“Okay, whose spin is it again?” Mac asked through a yawn. 

They had been playing for maybe an hour, mostly truths because no one felt like moving. They’d gotten Sweet Dee to confess to all kinds of shit, whilst forming a silent alliance between the two of them, and not asking each other anything too risky. 

Dee snorted. 

  
“That’s the second time you’ve asked that. It’s your turn,” she said. 

“Oh.” Mac scrunched up his face. “Truth or dare?”

“Dude, you– you didn’t spin it yet,” Dennis said, looking like it took all of his brain power to form that one sentence. 

Mac looked at the bottle, then back at Dennis. He split into a grin which then morphed into a crazed fit of laughter.

“Okay, fuck this, I’m goin’ to bed,” Dee said, glancing between them. “You guys are too drunk, this isn’t fun anymore.” 

“Boo.” Mac said and gave a thumbs down. 

Dee got up from the couch and stumbled a bit, tripping over Charlie’s feet, who was still lying on the floor. When the kid passed out, he really passed out. One time, he’d conked out under a tree and woken up two days later with a missing eyebrow. He’d been weirdly proud of it, too. 

After they heard Dee’s bedroom door click shut upstairs and the unmistakable wail of her box springs crying for dear life as she fell down on the bed, Dennis propped himself up on his elbows. 

“You wanna keep the game goin’ now that we ditched her?”

Mac furrowed his brow. 

“Huh?”

“I’m not _that_ tired, and I could go for a few more spins. Might be fun,” he had a look on his face that told Mac to just shut up and do what he said. 

So he did. “Okay.”

Dennis smiled loosely and grabbed the bottle, pointing it straight at Mac’s chest.

“Alright, Mac,” Dennis said with a grin, “truth ‘r dare?” he slurred. 

Mac already kind of regretted saying yes to the game, so he back-tracked. “This is so stupid, dude. It makes no sense if it’s just the two of us p–”

“ _Truth_.” Dennis interrupted, lifting the bottle to silence Mac. Rude. “Or dare?”

Mac grit his teeth.

“Fine. Truth.” He flicked his eyes away. 

Dennis immediately split into a grin and Mac tensed. He never knew what to think of this Dennis, who always seemed to be two steps ahead of him. 

“Okay,” Dennis shifted a little where he was sitting. He frowned, deep in thought, no doubt trying to figure out the worst possible thing to ask Mac. Mac didn’t let himself think about what that would be.

Then an easy smile took over Dennis’ face.

Mac could feel it in the base of his spine, the moment the air around them changed.

“Do you…” Dennis seemed to think the next words over a few times. “wanna kiss me?” he finished carefully.

No no no no. Mac flinched and backed up on the floor, just a little bit, but still.

“Well?” Dennis asked.

“No, I don’t.” Mac lied. He looked away. This wasn’t happening. 

Dennis laughed. 

“Nuh-uh-uh,” he teased, sing-songy. “You have to tell the truth.” He looked gleeful, knowing exactly what he was doing. Goddamn him.

Mac thought of every possible thing he could do in this situation. The first option seemed to be the easiest, most natural to him: he could run, he could go far away and never talk to Dennis again. Or he could punch Dennis and call him a fag, make him regret ever looking at him. 

Or.

Or he could do the thing he’d thought of doing from the moment he’d laid eyes on Dennis. If only this once. 

If only this once, he could have what he wanted. What he really, _truly_ wanted.

But he did none of that. Instead, he fired back, in some new surge of confidence.

“Why do you wanna know? You wanna kiss me?” he asked. It was the booze. That was also what was making his voice waver and causing him to stumble over the words. It was always the booze.

He expected Dennis to scoff, to say no, that he was above that. Instead– 

“Oh, dude, more than I’d care to admit,” Dennis wasn’t looking at Mac, not really. He was speaking in a tone like he didn’t believe what was coming out of his own mouth, and fiddling with the bottle still in his hands. A type of uncertainty glowed from him that wasn’t often seen on the great Dennis Reynolds.

It threw Mac off, hard.

“You– what!?” Mac said, brilliantly. “What did you just say?”

Dennis laughed, an almost panicky thing.

“I’m just demonstrating what it looks like when someone tells the truth,” he said, gesturing with his hands. “Since you clearly have such a problem with that.”

Mac gaped for a minute. 

“Are you serious?” he said, hushed out like a whisper but desperate like a plea or a prayer.

“Mm-hmm.” Dennis nodded overly confidently.

Mac could feel his brain constricting and expanding as he tried to wrap his mind around the entire situation. This was way further than they’d gone before. This wasn’t just a few light touches they could claim accidental, this– this was something real. Too real. Dennis must have seen it on his face, because the next thing he said was with a new, more careful tone. 

“I think it’s time for a dare, yeah?” said Dennis, and there it was. He’d given Mac his out. A way for Mac to say ‘I didn’t choose to do it, because everyone knows you have to do what a dare says’. Mac was grateful.

“Yeah,” he said around the dryness of his mouth. 

They never actually said it, never yanked into the light the question that neither of them really had the guts to ask. Dennis just set the bottle down and scooted closer to Mac, who sat up. They were sitting face to face with each other, with maybe half a foot between their faces. Dennis with his legs crossed over each other, the way Dee’s had been earlier on the couch, Mac leaning forward with his fists propping him up.

Mac flicked his eyes away and squeezed them shut for a second. Then he fixed his gaze on an old clock on the wall. It was mahogany, he guessed. It read the time in roman numerals. The ticking was a little out of sync and was starting to become grating. 

He looked back at Dennis, who seemed like he was thoroughly interested in Mac’s face; he kept darting his eyes all over it, between both of his eyes, to his lips, back to his eyes. It was unnerving but Mac couldn’t dream of asking him to stop. 

They both leaned in just a few inches, like a silent agreement. They were close enough that either one could close the distance, but far enough that they could still back off, declare it some big joke. But it wasn’t funny. Mac had never been less amused in his life. Dennis nudged his own face up a little, as if to give final permission. Mac leaned forward, his knuckles digging into the carpet uncomfortably. 

In the end, Dennis was the one who made the final, definite move.

Mac let out an embarrassing, surprised noise when their lips brushed. The feeling made his entire body squirm and his heart leap into his throat. 

Dennis took a deep breath in through his nose, and it was like he was siphoning all of the air from Mac’s lungs. Goddamn him. Mac was paralyzed against him, which would have been humiliating had Dennis not been just as unmoving, like two statues propped to look like they were kissing each other.

After a few seconds, after Mac had already slightly adjusted to the idea of… _this_ , Dennis apparently decided it was a good idea to make his brain short circuit again: he moved. 

He moved his lips against Mac’s, slotting them together more, closer, and oh God, they really were mouth to mouth. Dennis' mouth was soft and just tasted like whiskey and lips, but it was still the most intoxicating thing Mac had ever tasted. He didn’t understand the science of it, but he didn’t really want to think too hard about the whole situation. Right now, he was just focused on _this._ He went pliant under Dennis' lips and tilted his head slightly to the right, making for an even deeper kiss. This seemed to catch Dennis by surprise, as if he had expected Mac to freak out again. Dennis moved his body closer, forcing Mac to shift his position on the floor and lean back a little.

Dennis snuck out a cut-off hitch of his breath that made Mac sigh against his mouth, which was moving against his own in a slow, steady rhythm. Dennis was looming over him, trapping him, but for once he didn’t mind. He was too enthralled by the sensation of Dennis against him, pressing into his body, seeping into his very soul, swimming hot in his veins. 

Dennis' tongue ran lightly along Mac’s bottom lip, barely there, and Mac most definitely _did not_ whine. He responded to it by touching so, so lightly against it with his own. He shifted in his seat again, his body telling him to _please do something._ He opted to place one hand on Dennis’s hip, riding a little under his shirt, stroking the exposed skin. Dennis shuddered and his lips stopped moving for a beat before starting up again with more pressure, more purpose.

Here was the thing: Mac had always liked kissing. It was a nice segue to get him ready for the more hot and heavy stuff. It was never, ever, _ever_ like this, though. _This_ was on a whole other level; Mac felt like he could quit food and water and sleep entirely, just kiss Dennis for five to eight hours every day instead. He could survive like that. He could _thrive_ like that. He knew he wasn’t supposed to feel these things, knew this line of thinking would most definitely land him a special seat in the deepest pits of Hell, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not right now.

Their tongues were moving against each other and every inch of Mac’s body was wildfire. Dennis pulled off and placed a small kiss to the corner of Mac’s mouth. He dragged his lips down Mac’s jaw and kissed there, breath coming in warm puffs of air against Mac’s skin. Mac made a breathy noise as his stomach swirled pleasantly from the touch. He couldn’t fucking take it. He removed his hand from Dennis' hip, taking the other’s chin between his index finger and thumb and reconnecting their mouths. Once they were kissing steadily again, he carded his fingers in Dennis' hair and kept them there. Mac pulled Dennis down to the floor with him so that Dennis was laying on him. He threaded his hand through Dennis’ hair, down the back of his neck, stroking the sensitive skin there. He traced small patterns on the other’s exposed shoulder. 

Dennis went back to Mac’s jaw, his neck, his collarbone. It was all so much, too much, Mac couldn’t keep himself from breathing heavily into the emptiness of the room. All he could feel was Dennis, all he could hear were the sounds of lips against skin and his own blood thrumming in his ears. 

He got so lost in the sensation of Dennis' mouth on him that the passage of time became a thick jelly where nothing really made sense. Somehow it had been almost 20 minutes, according to the maybe-mahogany clock on the wall, when Mac snapped his eyes open and slipped away from his trance. He pulled Dennis off of him with a hand on his waist, and sat back up. Dennis didn’t get the memo and attached his lips to Mac’s neck, sucking on the skin there.

“No, Dennis, _nngh,_ ” his eyes fluttered closed again. Dennis kissed his bottom lip. Mac tightened his grip on Dennis' waist for a moment, arched his body toward him, before remembering why he pulled off in the first place.

“What is it?” Dennis asked, sounding almost desperate. 

“I– I can’t,” Mac breathed, his lips still brushing Dennis’ skin.

“You can’t what?”

“I can’t do this anymore, I–” he took a shuddering breath in and swallowed, “I’m not–,” he didn’t finish his sentence. “I can’t.”

Dennis sighed and brushed Mac’s hair back. Mac felt lips on his forehead but his eyes were closed, so he could have imagined it. 

“That’s okay,” Dennis said, putting some distance between them. “Let’s just go to sleep, okay?”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll take the couch.” Mac opened his eyes and straightened himself out.

Dennis eyed him for a moment but ended up saying nothing. He got up and brought Mac a blanket, before disappearing upstairs.

Mac found sleep eventually, but stayed up for a long while, just staring at the floral cushions on the couch, wondering where he’d seen them before. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyy thank you for reading!! sorry this one is a bit late and not quite as long as the other ones, ive had a bit of a block recently :( 
> 
> catch me on tumblr at istillgotthemoves <3


	4. boop boop de doop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw homophobic language

_ July 8th _

Mac ran a sweaty hand through his hair for the millionth time that hour. He glanced at the clock which announced 1PM in a steady ticking rhythm. He was engaged in a  _ very _ intense staring contest with their home phone, sitting in the living room of his house. In his hand was a crumpled piece of paper carrying 10 smudged digits in blue ink. He didn’t have any need for the paper — he had memorized it by now, with how much he’d been staring at it. It was only in his hand now so he had something to fidget with while he wracked his brain over whether to pick up the phone and dial the number. It would be so easy, just like any other phone number, just turn the disk a few times and wait for the tone. He’d almost done just that – many times actually – but he’d always chickened out and slammed the handset back down with unnecessary force and glared at it, like the phone had personally offended him just by allowing him to even consider dialing. 

It had been three days since he had rushed out of the Reynolds’ house after waking up on the couch, hungover, with the faint memory of Dennis’ lips still on his. Everyone else had still been asleep when he’d snuck out and ran the way home, passing Dennis’ ugly fucking car on his way out of the gate, it staring at him in accusation. God, sometimes he could swear the thing was alive. Then he’d gone home and tried to sleep to no avail — his thoughts had been too loud. He hadn’t heard from either of the twins since. Okay, well, that wasn’t completely true; Dee had looked at him from across the street and Mac had pretended not to see her. He had ignored her screeching voice as he turned around and walked away. He’d decided to take another route to work from then on. 

Then why, pray tell, the  _ fuck _ was he about to call Dennis by his own accord? Well, that was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? One that even Mac himself didn’t have the answer to. It was just this— this gut feeling, a spinal cord  _ need _ to see him again. It was the same feeling he’d felt on the 4th of July, he realized grimly. That new, kind of good, scary feeling that encompassed his whole body and the air around it. It was one of those feelings that you kept wanting to chase after, no matter what you had to do for it. Even if you had to dial a goddamn telephone. 

Mac breathed out in a shaky gust of air that made him lean forward in his seat, and picked up the handset, rolling his shoulders back. The phone was still warm from his hands before. He pressed it to his ear and closed his eyes, listening to the dial tone for a few seconds. Then, before he had a chance to gather himself, he had already dialed and the phone was tooting in intervals in his left ear. 

Before he could freak out and smash the phone to bits, which was something he was strongly considering, the dial tone cut off and a voice filtered in through the receiver. “Mel?” 

That was Dee’s voice, so not the one Mac had wanted to hear. But as it seemed, he wasn’t the one she’d been expecting either. He couldn’t  _ really _ get into it, though, he was calling for a reason. Still, he couldn’t help his curious soul. 

“Uh, no,” Mac readjusted his thoughts to fit the situation. “Hi, Dee. Who the hell is Mel?”

“No one. Nothing. What do you want?” she spoke quickly, her voice was grating even over the phone.

“Um, right. Is uh– is Dennis there?” he squeezed his eyes shut and felt his leg bouncing up and down on the floor.

There was a pause on the other line. Possibly contemplative. “Yeah, he’s– he’s here, hold on,” then there was the clear sound of a hand being cupped on the phone and a muffled yell. After a few moments, Mac could hear a brief tussle as the phone was being fought over and some hushed insults were thrown. Then it was quiet. 

“Hello?” Mac tried. 

“Hi,” the sound of Dennis’ voice made Mac suck in a breath. He pinched himself on the thigh and tried to remember what he had been planning on saying. He’d practiced it, even. “Asshole, are you there?” Dennis’ tone snapped him back into his body. 

“Yeah, yeah, I– I’m here. Uh, I was just wondering – wondering if–,” Jesus Christ, this could not be going any worse, seriously. “–if you’d maybe want to get something to eat, sometime. Like, fries or something.” he kicked himself mentally. “Maybe a milkshake,” he added, to fill the dead air he was getting from the other line. 

“Yeah, sure. When?” was the only answer Dennis gave. His tone sounded strange, but it was probably just the phone distorting his voice. 

Mac smiled briefly to himself, before he remembered he had been asked a question. “Oh, uh. I was thinking like Friday? I have the day off and I figured you’d be out of school then.”

“Um, yeah, you– you’re right about that.”

“Yeah. So, Friday? At like 4?” Mac scrunched his face up and pleaded silently.

“Friday at 4.” was all that Dennis said before hanging up abruptly. 

  
  


The rest of Mac’s day after that felt rather uneventful, or maybe he just wasn’t paying enough attention to the things happening around him anymore. Either way, 5PM rolled around slower than it ever had. That was when his shift started. He’d been working nights lately, because Luther had been even more irritable and stony-faced than usual, so Mac wanted to spend as little time as possible in his immediate trajectory. The night shift was usually the safest bet, since Luther was always off doing his side-business at night. Usually. Tonight, Mac thought as he walked through the shop doors, seemed to be the exception that made the rule, because there Luther was – sitting very, very still on his chair in the back room. He was counting money, so he was not to be disturbed, Mac had learned that the hard way. Except this time, he looked up from the money and straight at Mac. His stomach dropped. He felt caught, though he didn’t know what for.

“What’s Friday?” Oh. That for. 

Mac’s mouth felt like he had swallowed a brick of salt. Like those things that you give horses. His hands were suddenly damp with sweat and his head felt a million miles away. “What are you talking about?”

Luther took a pause. “I heard you on the phone earlier. Talking about Friday.” 

Fuck. Mac’s heart stuttered. He hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone that afternoon. He felt like he might actually throw up. “Oh. That’s nothing, I’m just hanging out with my friends, uh– all of them,” he lied. He had never been very good at that, but it was always worth a shot, right?

“Mmm.” Luther looked him directly in the eyes for an uncomfortably long time, unblinking and terrifying as always. “Get to work, son.”

“Yup. Okay,” said Mac, nodding before he walked away from the situation as fast as humanly possible, skin still burning with his father’s eyes on his back. He felt on the brink of collapsing, knees nearly giving out the second he was alone and away from the heat of Luther’s implications. He took some wavering breaths in and fell back with his back against the wall – how ironic. 

He’d have to be a lot more careful from now on. He thought about canceling Friday. It would be the safest option, since Luther knew about it now. He entertained that notion for a while before deciding to tuck it in the back of his head, for later. He figured maybe he should stop the whole thing in its tracks before it got too out of his already feeble control. He wished, not for the first time, that he had the power to control time. Maybe if he managed to stop Friday from happening at all, it would work, but as far as Mac knew, he didn’t possess any time-bending abilities. 

  
  


_ July 12th  _

Well, because Mac apparently can’t have nice things, Friday rolled around after all; strolled right on in like it owned the goddamn place. Friday seemed to have so much audacity, with the way it feigned to never actually come at all and then snuck up behind you like a predator just waiting to pounce with its two-for-one drink specials and half-off fries at Betsy’s. And that was where Mac was; sat at the furthest booth from the door, staring out the window with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips, fingers tippity tapping on the tablecloth in front of him. It was a little windy outside, he could see people gripping tight at their jackets and drawing them across their chests like capes, scrunching up their faces on reflex as if it somehow shielded them from the abrasiveness of the weather. Some lady’s scarf flew off in the breeze and she ran after it like it had stolen her wallet. Mac stumped out his cigarette with slightly shaky hands and he leaned back in his seat – leg bouncing up, down, up, down under the booth table. He had been chewing on his lip earlier and could still taste the slight metallic tang of the damaged, almost broken skin whenever his tongue made contact. 

The little bell above the door jingled and Mac jumped up in his seat, quickly fixing his eyes in that direction. He deflated. The woman, presumably a nanny, and two children walking in looked obnoxiously happy; the pair of young boys were smiling and laughing as they ran off in whichever direction their little brains told them to at that moment, circling the chairs and booths like sharks on the hunt. Mac glanced at the girl working behind the counter. It was the same waitress as last time, uh, what’s-her-face. She seemed extraordinarily bored, or possibly hungover, resting her cheek on her folded elbow and slipping in and out of consciousness judging by the way she kept jerking up every once in a while. She barely managed to staple the edges of her mouth up into a smile when the woman walked up to her, saying something quietly before grabbing the boys by their lapels and walking them to a table in the back. 

Mac was so invested in whatever was going on there that he barely caught the bell dinging again, this time for the reason he’d wanted it to. Dennis pushed the door open to the diner and Mac caught him doing one of those brief scans of the place, like he was trying to be subtle about it but was terrible at it. When their eyes met, they both froze for a split-second before giving identical little half smiles at each other. 

The booth was shaped like a semi-circle, with Mac on one of the edges near the main floor, Dennis sitting in the curve with his back facing the window. It was tactically planned; they weren’t exactly facing each other but they weren’t side to side either. The waitress walked up to them after a moment and took their orders reluctantly. After she had slid away, Dennis was already rambling about something mildly interesting that had happened at school. Mac, being Mac, was listening with maybe half an ear. He was far more interested in the way Dennis’ foot was ever so casually touching Mac’s under the table. 

“So then  _ I _ said, if you want me to burn you like my sister did to  _ her  _ roommate, I’d be happy to— will you stop that?” 

“Huh?” Mac looked up from their twined ankles and found Dennis looking annoyed. 

“ _ This _ ,” Dennis slapped a hand firmly on Mac’s knee, freezing him to the core and stilling it where it had earlier been bouncing. “Christ, you’re shaking the entire goddamn table with that,” his hand stayed there, unmoving and  _ warm _ for a few more tense moments before he finally drew it back. Mac’s thigh felt a wash of coldness at the absence. 

Mac swallowed and muttered, “Whatever,” and tried to think of something, anything really, to talk about. “Did you know Sweet Dee’s goin’ out with some asshole called Mel?” he asked unnecessarily loudly, figuring that bashing Dee was as good a conversation topic as any. 

“ _ What? _ She—” Dennis’ sentence was cut off by a sharp clang coming from the direction of the kitchen; Mac turned his head to look and all he saw was the waitress cleaning up a plate that she must have dropped, the idiot. 

“Yeah, it’s weird, man,” Mac continued over him. “I don’t understand how anyone would go for her, seriously.”

“No, no, you know what it is?” Dennis asked, waving his finger like he’d just cracked an impossible case. “He’s after our money. Yeah, that’s what this is about. The moron wants to dig gold.”

“You think?” Mac cocked his head slightly. 

Dennis’ eyes narrowed as he stared into the distance far too dramatically. “Oh, absolutely.”

They were interrupted by the waitress bringing them their food and drinks, slamming them down with a little too much force. She didn’t bother to smile or give them a courtesy ‘enjoy!’ – just turned around as fast as she could and walked right off. 

“Jesus, what was that chick’s problem?” Mac asked.

“Dunno. She’s probably ragging it.”

Mac made a face and threw a fry at Dennis. 

They slipped back into the comfortable rhythm of chatting and arguing about whatever crossed their minds, silently tiptoeing around the elephant in the room. If they had shifted closer to each other while relaying events of days past, it was only because they were both such expressive storytellers. It meant nothing. Somewhere around the 1 hour mark of them sitting there talking, what had once been tiptoeing had turned into careful testing of the waters that surrounded the elephant.

Dennis rolled his eyes at something Mac said. “Are you fucking fooling? That’s  _ so _ immature.”

“Dude, I’m like, way more mature than you,” 

“Oh really? You think you’re the poster boy for maturity?” Dennis’ face changed, metaphorical penny shooting up into the air. “What with the running out at, like, 7 in the goddamn morning so you don’t have to talk to me, and then disappearing for a week for no goddamn reason?” 

Jesus, had he been keeping that in the whole time? Mac’s face heated up. “Wh– what? That wasn’t, like, because of… I just–” __

“You just…?”

Mac cast his somewhere in the direction of the floor, or even lower, all the way down to the burning coals of Hell. The penny clinked distantly, ominously, onto the floor of Mac’s subconscious. 

“I didn’t think you’d want to remember that.”

Dennis’ expression shifted from cocky to confused in the short moment that floated between the words slipping out of Mac’s mouth and the second that he regretted saying them.

“Oh,” Dennis sounded almost apologetic – Mac hadn’t known that to be possible. It was clearly uncharted territory for both of them, but well, they seemed to be real good at navigating those. “I…” Dennis glanced around the room; there were quite a few people there. “Maybe we should talk about this someplace else?”

Mac re-entered the moment. “Yeah– yeah.”

  
  


Having a conversation with someone about something neither of you want to talk about, but both of you really really need to talk about, is a strange scenario. Most of it is silence, a good chunk of it is someone clearing their throat, and the rest is clusters of words strung together and uttered as quietly as humanly possible. At this particular moment, it was silent. Eerily, even. They had spoken on the way there, sure, but almost as soon as they had sat down in Mac’s room the silence had fallen over with all the grace of two idiots not knowing how to carry a conversation. Oh, but an interesting turn was about to take place; Dennis was about to speak. How could Mac tell? Well, his mouth was about to open. 

“So, uh, when you said you though I didn’t want to remember, uh. That. It wasn’t like a— or I didn’t  _ mean _ to— um.” Dennis was talking in a way that showed he had been practicing this in his head, possibly this whole time, but was bombing horrifically with the delivery.

Mac just stared at the floor. He didn’t know what to say— or what he wanted to hear. Honestly, it would probably be easier if Dennis said he  _ hadn’t _ wanted to remember, but since that apparently wasn’t the case, he was at a loss. So he just… stared. 

Dennis seemed to take that as a que to continue, taking another deep breath and scrunching his fingers together the way he did when he felt like he wasn’t in control. “What I’m saying is, I uh, I would have said—  _ did _ what I did, even if we hadn’t been completely hammered, is what I’m saying,” he fell back in his seat and gnawed at his thumbnail. 

Mac looked at Dennis now instead of the floor. His chest was doing something strange, and his brain was just all around confused. “What, like, you were planning on it or something?”

“If you have to phrase it like that, then sure, yeah,” Dennis rolled his eyes, clearly just for show, and shifted uncomfortably.

“So, the whole time, or…?”

“What whole time?” 

“Like, how long were you planning on ambushing me like that, with the whole game and shit?” Mac’s words were accusatory, but there was a small smile toying at the corner of his mouth that he couldn’t suppress. 

“Okay, woah, okay  _ first of all _ , I didn’t  _ ambush _ you, you just don’t have a working brain,” Dennis waved his hands around with each emphasis, “and technically it wasn’t like, a  _ plan _ plan, like I wasn’t staying up all night scheming and concocting ways to– to do that,”

“Sure you weren’t.”

“You know what? I’m not gonna talk about this if you’re gonna be an asshole about it.”

“I’m not being an asshole!”

Dennis pursed his lips and continued. “Right, so I wasn’t like, losing sleep over it or anything, but, you know, I figured 4th of July would be as good a time as any to see how far you’re willing to push this thing and, by the looks of it you found your limit,” he said. The fact that he didn’t need to specify that last part really made Mac’s stomach churn. 

Neither of them spoke for a while. Mac’s brain was trying to wrap itself in endless loops around the conversation. Even the fact that they were  _ having _ the conversation was almost too much to handle. But the facts seemed to be as such: They had –it was hard to even think it– they had kissed. His entire face twitched at the thought. Another fact: it hadn’t been a drunken accident. Not for Dennis and, as much as he hated admitting it even to himself, not for Mac either. They had both meant it. Now, what did that mean, having meant it? What did it mean for them? Was there even a ‘them’ for whom it would mean something? His palms were cold and so was his scalp. 

Dennis, sitting opposite from him, looked  _ bored,  _ of all things. Well, in actuality, he looked like he was feigning being bored, but his foot kept twitching and he was sneaking completely unsubtle glances at Mac every now and then. Eventually he huffed and switched his position so that he was facing Mac more head-on.

“So are you going to say anything or should I just…” he pointed his thumb at the door. 

Mac’s blood boiled inexplicably at that. “Well  _ excuse _ me, your highness, while I take a  _ moment _ to--” he stopped abruptly; a door slammed downstairs.

They glanced at each other and shared identical looks of confusion with a smidge of terror. Luther wasn’t supposed to be home today, and Mac’s mom was working a double shift. They could hear how the stairs creaked under the weight of someone’s quick steps. Steps that Mac had learned to recognize, and be wary of. As if through silent communication, they hastened to put more distance between them, though they were already sitting as far apart as possible. 

The door opened and time stood still. The air was stiff and the specks of dust lit by sunbeams seemed to stop in their tracks. Luther stared at the two of them, shifting his gaze between them, before fixing it on Dennis. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head back ever so slightly. 

“You,” he said, “go home. Me and Ronnie need to sort somethin’ out.”

Dennis stood up quickly and, avoiding eye contact, slunk out the door without even sparing a glance at Mac. Luther and Mac seemed to both be listening for the slam of the door to signal them being alone in the house; Luther with anticipation, Mac with dread. He had no idea why his father wanted to talk to him – he wasn’t the type to just have a chat with his son. Okay, saying he had no idea was a bit of a stretch—his mind was positively racing with possible answers, one sticking out more than the others, though he didn’t have a clue as to how Luther would know about that one. 

The door downstairs clicked, and the air went stiff again. 

Luther spoke first, “Who is that kid, anyway?”

“Dennis Reynolds,” Mac answered quickly. He swallowed. 

“Huh.” Luther was silent for a moment. “I don’t want him comin’ around here anymore.”

Mac’s heart stuttered. “What? Why not? His folks have got money, you could do real business with ‘em,” he rushed, “What’s the issue?”

“Look, kid, do I  _ really _ need to spell it out for you?” Luther sighed. 

Mac fell back a little, wracking his brain. 

“Alright, I guess I do,” his father continued with a tone of exasperation, “the kid’s a… a fruit. A fag. I can damn near smell it on him. I don’t want to have to worry about that kind of shit under my roof.” 

Mac’s tongue felt stuck to the back of his teeth. In place of where he normally would’ve felt repulsion — hearing that someone he knows is  _ like that _ , he, due to recent events, would find it rather hypocritical of him to feel anything but anger. A strange, shameful, protective kind of anger. 

“If I see him here again,” Luther mimicked the action of slitting a throat. He walked out and slammed Mac’s door, leaving him sitting in confusion with pain in his chest.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO SORRY for the short chapter and the. uh. 6 month wait. ive been going thru some Mental Health. ily all and i hop u enjoy this even a little djshkfd


	5. chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO SORRY for the long wait nd short tiny stump of a chapter :(( im sure most have already forgotten ab this fic but <33 i have not iv just been in a HeadSpace. ily

_ August 2nd _

The thing about corporate parties held at your own house was that, well, they were at  _ your goddamn house _ . This meant no privacy, no alone time, and no access to the free alcohol because  _ allegedly _ you had a habit of being obnoxious and off-putting to the very important guests when intoxicated. Allegedly. Of course, that last bit was negotiable. Or just easy to bypass. This all added up to a drunk-off-his-ass Dennis hauled up in the upstairs hallway with a bottle and a headache.

That was of course, until some very rude person with no respect for personal lamenting decided to stomp up the stairs whilst whispering something –quite angrily– to herself. Dennis was intrigued– he recognized the irritated (and irritating) voice from somewhere. 

“–cents an hour…” she ripped off her apron –must have been one of the wait staff, then– and threw it at the floor where it fell next to Dennis’ feet. Dennis waited in vain for an apology. She must not have known he lived in the mansion –which was fair since he wasn’t downstairs mingling with the partners like he should be– or she would’ve shown some respect. Mistakes aside, he didnt care for having shit thrown at him, so he flung the apron back. 

“Hey!” the waitress shouted out, surprised, “who the hell are you and why are you throwing things at me?”

Dennis made an incredulous face, “You do realize that I could, actually  _ should _ ask you that very same question, don’t you?”

She silenced for a contemplative second, realizing that he had a point, presumably. “Fine. I’m sick of working at underpaying jobs and being groped by old, short, fat men with fake hair–” she took a moment to collect herself, “hence the throwing. As for the first part of that question, you can read my nametag,” she huffed, throwing the apron back at him once more, and sitting down with her back against the stairway railing. 

“Yeah, Frank’s a pain,” Dennis chuckled, unamused. 

“How do you know him then?” she asked. 

“I have to live here with him.”

“Wait,” the waitress furrowed her brow. “Is he your dad?” she asked, stifling a reaction. 

“So,” he turned the apron over – ignoring the question – and glanced at the metal tag — Melissa, it said, in bold letters. “Do I know you from somewhere?” 

The waitress — Melissa — looked away for a second, smiling, before meeting his eyes again, “Are you serious?”

Dennis stared blankly at her. 

“I work at the diner on 13th Street? The one you come by at  _ least _ once a week?” she gaped.

“Oh. Which one is that again? Becky’s?”

“Betsy’s,” she corrected with a frown. “How self absorbed do you have to be to not remember,” she wondered to herself. 

Dennis snarked, “I’m to remember every back alley diner I walk into?”

Melissa rolled her eyes and started to chew on her shoulder-lenght hair. 

Dennis’ face twisted into a grimace– he hated when people chewed on any part of themselves. Mac sometimes bit his nails– that wasn’t  _ as _ disgusting. 

“What’s your problem?” Melissa spat — literally, because she had to spit out her hair to say it.

Dennis blinked away his previous thoughts and hastened to reply, “That’s just not very attractive, is all,” he continued, starting to ramble, “because, y’know, you could be…  _ average _ if you put any effort into suppressing off-putting traits like that.” he didn’t entirely know what he was saying, but he maintained his composure as if he did.

Melissa stared for a split second before bursting into a bright and mean laugh. “Oh, you– you foppling  _ moron _ ! You can drop the act, you know,” she snorted.

“What act? There’s no act!”

Melissa kept chuckling, barely containing herself, and shook her head. “Whatever you say.”

“You—”

Suddenly, Sweet Dee’s voice carried from the stairwell. “Mel?”

Dennis’ brain simulated a record scratch, “Wait. _ Mel _ ?”

Melissa said nothing. 

“You– you’re Mel? The Mel who’s been calling my sister? The one she’s been–”

“Oh, there you are,” Dee emerged from the stairs, interrupting the moment. She glanced to the side. “Oh, hi Dennis.”

“Hi?” Dennis squealed. “Fucking  _ hi _ ?”

“Look, maybe we should have this conversation somewhere more… non-public,” Dee proposed.

“I think the word you’re looking for is ‘private’,” 

“Okay, you know what, that’s enough out of you. Get in the room.”

“What room?”

“The one that you’re blocking the entrance to, dickweed” 

“Oh.” Dennis got up and opened the door which led into his sister’s bedroom. 

The girls made him sit on the bed while they stood, seemingly lording over him. He couldn't help but notice how close to each other they were standing.

“Are you lording over me?”

Dee rolled her eyes. “Yes, now hush.”

She then launched into a far too detailed retelling of how, when, and  _ why _ the situation at hand became what it is. All in all it made Dennis feel rather stupid for not seeing the obvious signs. Of course he didn’t let any of this shine through, though. 

“So…  _ Why _ exactly was I not made aware of this?” Dennis asked, acting more offended than he actually felt. “So she’s been serving us our food and drinks for  _ months _ and on the side she was—,” he didn’t want to finish that sentence because he would rather not think about the whole ordeal –and, moreover, didn’t care to admit or consider the irony in his accusations.

Sweet Dee on the other hand clearly had no qualms about pointing that out to him, though. 

  
  
  
  


Dee looked affronted, “Hey! I never said anything about her — you and your boytoy just decided to eavesdrop every single conversation of mine, like you were two little girls.” She crossed her arms and looked expectantly at him. 

“I-” Dennis pursed his lips. “It wasn’t my idea,” he muttered. 

“Oh, like I’m to believe that  _ Mac _ has ever had the slightest spark of a thought in that brain of his.”

“Well,” he considered arguing but that wouldn’t help his situation very much. And Dee had a point. He settled for just sighing instead.

“Thought so,” Dee said smugly. “So do we have a deal?”

“What are you talking about?”

“God, you’re stupid. Ugh, okay,” she said the next part slowly like she was talking to a child, “I don’t spill the beans on your little dumpster fire of a situation, and you don’t tell anyone about my sensible and mature relationship.”

Dennis blinked at her for a while. “Jesus. Okay.”

“Shake on it,” Melissa urged. 

“Ew, I don’t wanna touch her,” Dennis protested, to which Melissa responded by taking both of them by the hand and forcing them to grasp each other and seal the deal. She smiled smugly and turned around on her heels, Dee following shortly. 

Dennis sighed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tytytytytyttyy for reading !! any and all feedback is welcome here as well as on my tumblr at istillgotthemoves!! once again sorry for the short chapter i just needed to get this out before i went insane

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading !
> 
> BIG thank you to deepa and rii (glundergun and theganggetsromantic on tumblr, respectively) and the entire shitty in pissadelphia server for constantly pressuring me into writing this. couldn't have done it without you <3<33<33333
> 
> find me on tumblr at istillgotthemoves <3


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